Alexa Weik von Mossner

Vulnerable lives: the affective dimensions of risk in young adult cli-fi

ABSTRACTThe article focuses on the psychological dimensions of readers’ engagements with young adult climate change fiction. It argues that that the embodied simulation of a fictional climate-changed world can offer much more than simple entertainment or escapism. Instead, it has the potential to impact teenagers’ understanding of the social, economic, and ecological risks associated with climate change and to give them a better sense of the vulnerability of their current lives and lifestyles. By way of example, the article draws on research in cognitive literary studies, neuroscience, and the psychology of fiction to examine the narrative strategies of Paolo Bacigalupi’s YA cli-fi novel Ship Breaker. It demonstrates how the novel’s depiction of a dystopian future cues both negative emotions and more positive emotions in in order to warn about the future risks of climate change and still make the reading experience pleasurable for young readers.ABSTRACT The article focuses on the psychological dimensions of readers’ engagements with young adult climate change fiction. It argues that that the embodied simulation of a fictional climate-changed world can offer much more than simple entertainment or escapism. Instead, it has the potential to impact teenagers’ understanding of the social, economic, and ecological risks associated with climate change and to give them a better sense of the vulnerability of their current lives and lifestyles. By way of example, the article draws on research in cognitive literary studies, neuroscience, and the psychology of fiction to examine the narrative strategies of Paolo Bacigalupi’s YA cli-fi novel Ship Breaker. It demonstrates how the novel’s depiction of a dystopian future cues both negative emotions and more positive emotions in in order to warn about the future risks of climate change and still make the reading experience pleasurable for young readers.

Engaging Animals in Wildlife Documentaries: From Anthropomorphism to Trans-species Empathy

This chapter introduces a cognitive ecocritical approach that draws on research in affective neuroscience and cognitive ethology to explore the role of anthropomorphism and trans-species empathy in viewers’ engagement with nonhuman characters in wildlife documentaries. It argues that recent ethological research casts a new light on neurologist Vittorio Gallese’s concept of liberated “embodied simulation” in film viewing, and that a closer look at the embodied expression of animal emotions allows for a better understanding of our affective responses to the animals we see in nonfiction film. Drawing on the work of Dirk Eitzen, it further suggests that viewers’ belief in the authenticity and consequentiality of the events seen on screen is of central importance to their emotional responses to wildlife documentaries.